The Wild Life

Top pros offer tips on how to make a living as a wildlife photographer.

- Maria Piscopo

PHOTOGRAPHING WILDLIFE IN THEIR NATURAL HABITAT has always been both challenging and rewarding. Whether you develop a business selling the use of the images or leading workshop tours, this field requires a special combination of passion and patience. In this article, we look at how and where wildlife photos can be sold as well as prospects to pursue and pitfalls to avoid. Special thanks to our four contributors: Sean Crane; Barbara Fleming (Fleming Safari Company, LLC);Eric Horan (Lowcountry Photo Safaris);and Josh Patterson.

Shutterbug: What kinds of clients do you work with (assignments, editorial, advertising, stock, fine art prints, etc.)?

Eric Horan: We have done everything on this list; we lead photo adventures locally and in other locations in the United States and out of the country. Since 2009 I have changed my emphasis from advertising assignments to selling fine art prints and editorial assignments and leading photo tours (by boat). There is only so much time and other resources available for marketing and we have been spending that energy marketing for fine art projects and booking tours, mostly here in the coastal southeast region. This isn’t to say that I no longer take the corporate and advertising work but now it’s strictly the assignments that walk through the door.